November 3, 2003

Budget Cuts Affect Tuition

The inauguration of a new president has marked the beginning of a new chapter in Cornell history. The fate of important issues which directly impact students, however, such as tuition, academic programs and the availability of classes outside one’s college cannot be genuinely determined until New York State releases its new budget — a lengthy process that usually begins in January. Because budget cuts over the past years have dramatically impacted Cornell’s statutory colleges and indirectly affected the endowed colleges, both the University and its various colleges have begun implementing new strategies to curb costs. Unfortunately for students, the traditional way the financial burdens have been relieved has been through tuition increases.

Budget cuts have a “direct impact on tuition because the cost of education is not static,” said Patsy Brannon, dean of the College of Human Ecology. “We have had unmet inflation needs for facilities, [such as] the library … all of which affect the cost of education.”

Robert Smith, associate dean for Academic Affairs in the School of Industrial Relations, concurred, saying that a reduction in state funding has “made [ILR] more dependent on tuition.”

In addition, many of the alternative methods originally used by the statutory colleges to relieve the financial burden have become slowly exhausted or not affective enough.

“We have in some cases used the limited reserves we had,” Brannon said. “We have [also] decreased the number of our faculty and staff, that is a very real decrease, approximately 15 percent.”

ILR has also suffered some reduction in staff, primarily in “the ILR extension area the last couple of years,” Smith said.

Also, according to Brannon, certain academic programs such as the Undergraduate Social Work program in the human ecology college have been eliminated due to budget constraints. “During [such] constraints there are losses in academic opportunities,” Brannon added, which “drives the rate at which tuition increases.”

Net tuition at the statutory schools has also been increased in a second, more indirect, manner. “There is an unwritten rule that the state schools should admit 70 percent in-state students and 30 percent out-of-state students,” said Mark Wysocki, earth and atmospheric sciences.

However, many of the statutory schools have recently begun making efforts to attract more out-of-state students. “We have been looking very carefully at what is the appropriate balance between in-state and out-of-state students [and] we are moving to 60 percent in-state and 40 percent out-of-state,” Brannon said.

ILR has also made efforts to increase the number of out-of-state students enrolled. “We are marketing more out of state so we have more out-of-state students applying,” Smith said. Smith made it clear, however, that despite efforts to increase out-of-state enrollment, a student’s state residence does not affect the likelihood of admittance. “We don’t really look at state residence when we look at a folder,” Smith explained.

Besides efforts to increase income through tuition, many of the statutory schools have employed other revenue raising techniques more typical of endowed colleges. For example, as the availability of federal and state research money has declined over the years, “contract colleges have become more successful in [obtaining] competitive grants for research,” said Francille Firebaugh, vice provost for Land Grant Affairs.

Each of the colleges has made efforts to increase endowment money and financial support from research institutions and companies not directly affiliated with Cornell.

“We have been working very hard on enhancing revenue from the endowments and gifts that provide us [with] very important budget relief,” Brannon said.

“We now have to look even more intensely than before to support our research and outreach extension,” he added.

In addition to increasing tuition and searching for financial support, the statutory colleges have been forced to review the number of classes they allow their students to take outside of the school. Though the number differs from college to college, “students in Ag can take 55 credits outside of CALS and if a student takes 55 of those credits in Arts, the Ag school then has to pay Arts at the end of the semester for each of those credits,” Wysocki said. The same rule applies to all the colleges. Thus, “colleges try to get most of their students to take classes in their own college, and if they are lucky … they bring in students from the other colleges,” Wysocki added. Historically, “the state helps us with paying the endowed side for courses that students in the [statutory] colleges take in the endowed [colleges],” Firebaugh said. However, “that amount [has] continued to be flat and less as the years go on.” Changes in the number of classes that students in the statutory colleges are allowed to take in the endowed colleges would also alter the financial situation of the endowed colleges. For example, “if CALS were to reduce the number to 20, the Engineering and Arts schools would lose money since many students in AG currently take classes in those [endowed] schools,” Wysocki said. Nonetheless, Firebaugh assured students that the financial difficulties surrounding the situation will not be passed on. “We have not penalized students for that and Cornell as a whole always keeps students from being affected.”

The endowed colleges are also affected by state budget fluctuations in more direct ways. “State support affects financial aid and Bundy aid, a program that provides dollars per degree granted at private institutions in New York,” said Carolyn Ainslie, vice president of Planning and Budget.

Despite the difficulties, efforts to increase revenue for all the colleges have also been made at the University level through state lobbying. “We work closely with SUNY in trying to increase Cornell’s fair share of the pie,” said Ainslie. “We actually meet with members of the legislature and the government’s office,” Ainslie added. Furthermore, “we have been talking about a strategy: trying to work with other institutions of higher education to try to lobby together on these issues.”

The Department of Government Affairs created by President Lehman over the summer is the primary division responsible for lobbying members of the legislature. Interim Vice President Steven Johnson describes the lobbying as “a continuous process of being involved with the legislature and being sure that the state agency people know what is being done with state dollars that we have received … lobbying kind of goes on year-round.”

For now, the University is running on the 2003 budget; “the governor proposes the [new] budget in January,” Johnson said.

Until then, many of the colleges “have been trying to look ahead and plan on certainly not an increasing state budget,” Firebaugh said.

This is the "wpengine" admin user that our staff uses to gain access to your admin area to provide support and troubleshooting. It can only be accessed by a button in our secure log that auto generates a password and dumps that password after the staff member has logged in. We have taken extreme measures to ensure that our own user is not going to be misused to harm any of our clients sites.

Related

Both the men’s and women’s rugby teams tried to extend their seasons this weekend in the Northeastern Regional Tournament. The men were victorious over UMass, allowing them to advance to the next level of the tournament, while the women fell to Dartmouth, ending their season. On Saturday afternoon, the Cornell men’s rugby team added another win to its impressive 9-0 season with a 46-17 win over UMass in the first round of the Northeastern Regional Tournament. Saturday’s victory puts Cornell one win away from the Sweet-16. “This tournament is a prelude to the national tournament which takes place next semester,” said Alexander Cwirko-Godycki, captain of the men’s team. Luke Schafer was named the Most Valuable Player of the New York State Rugby Conference playoffs. “He leads the team in scoring and scored two trys against UMass as well as making all of his conversion kicks and penalty kicks,” Cwirko-Godycki said. This win was just a continuation of the success that the Red has enjoyed all season long. Its undefeated season includes shutouts against RPI, Syracuse, Canisius College and SUNY Brockport. “Last weekend, we beat the University of Buffalo to secure the New York State Rugby Conference Championship.” This was Cornell’s first league title since 1998. Women’s head coach and men’s assistant coach Christopher Morris believes that there are several factors that have contributed to the men’s success. “This team’s talent has never gone away. It’s not that they are so much better this year than they have been in the past — it’s just that they are so focused. Cornell has always been a top level program. The big difference has been the work of Ruairidh Sawers, the team’s new head coach,” Morris said. The team advanced to play the winner of the Norwich-Northeastern game this coming weekend for the next round of the tournament. Women’s Team The women’s team also played Saturday, losing a difficult match against Dartmouth, 17-27. “It was a great match, despite the outcome,” director of rugby operations Bruce Chruch said. Cornell’s Kate Blackledge scored early in the first half on a converted try, and Lindsey Ehinger added to the team’s score with a conversion kick to give the Red an 8-0 lead. Dartmouth replied by scoring three trys to take an advantage heading into the half. In the second half, Ehinger scored a penalty kick, cutting into the Green lead. However, Dartmouth came back to score two more uncoverted trys before Cornell winger Liz Connelly was able to bring Cornell back to within 10 points with a try that was converted by Ehinger. “Cornell’s comeback ran out of time,” Morris said. “It’s a hard way to end the season, but to call it a disappointment would cheapen the accomplishments of these athletes. They started out with a preseason tournament against some of the top ranked teams in the country and handled them quite well. What followed was an impressive show of dominance throughout New York state rugby throughout the regular season.” “The way that rugby is, especially at the collegiate level, any mistake on your side of the field can so quickly and easily be turned into points for the other team,” Morris said. The performance of the team throughout the season was a pleasant surprise for Morris. “We graduated 12 seniors last year, including the bulk of our starters. There were also some offseason injuries to players who were expected to step up into those positions. Under ordinary circumstances, you would have called this a rebuilding year. We didn’t rebuild, we reloaded.” This was the women’s rugby team’s eighth consecutive undefeated season as well as its eighth consecutive New York State championship season. In those eight seasons, three players have been sent to the U.S. National Team.Archived article by Shannon Heary

It was tale of two halves for the men’s polo team as they defeated an outgunned Purdue squad, 26-6, last Saturday night at the Oxley Equestrian Center. The first half was characterized by congested play as the two teams often ended bunched up along the sides scrapping for possession. Frequent penalties, especially on the Purdue side, disrupted the rhythm of the game. Although senior Senter Johnson was able to convert on many of the penalty opportunities, scoring was limited in the first two chukkers to 12-4 in favor of the Red. “The first half was ugly. It was effective but it was ugly,” remarked head coach David Eldredge ’81. “We kind of fell into playing their type of game — our guys got caught up in the handling and the stick-work, rather than spreading it out and passing the ball and hitting it to one another.” Senior Jeff Markle agreed with Eldredge’s assessment of the first half, which Markle felt was not characteristic of the type of polo the Red normally want to play. “The first half we got caught up a little bit in trying to control it too much and when that happens you give [Purdue] a chance. It all gets bunched up and the play doesn’t get moving.” At a crossroads in the second half, Coach Eldredge was faced with a difficult decision. His team was not playing as well as he had hoped. Yet they were up by eight goals, and Eldredge wanted to find playing time for freshman alternate Stan Feldman. He made the call bringing in Feldman, and telling his riders to play more as team by opening up the field, and moving the ball around more. The change was remarkable. Where the first half was characterized by penalties and disjointed play, the second half saw the Red spread the field and dominate. “Jeff and I sort of settled back and played a lot smarter,” commented Johnson. “We really got our game going in the second half, and played more like a team” Markle agreed saying “In the second half the biggest difference was we were able to open up and utilize one another, hit to each other and spread it out, and for us spreading it out and hitting away especially against a team like that is everything.” The second half was also a notably cleaner game, with far fewer fouls. “There were less fouls in the second half because it was open, and playing and running more,” said Eldredge, “and that’s just a whole lot nicer game to watch and to play in.” Among some of the second half highlights were two goals, scored by freshman Stan Feldman, the first of his collegiate career. “It was just kind of sitting there, and I reached out and that was it,” recalled Feldman. “It was pretty nice.” Also notable were Johnson’s 15 goals, including one in the fourth chukker, good for two points because it was scored, untouched, from behind midfield. “That’s always nice to get, although your never really trying to — or you shouldn’t be,” commented Johnson. Men’s polo will be in action again next Sunday as they travel to the University of Connecticut for a rematch of its season opener which the Red won 20-6. Women’s Polo The women matched the men’s offensive output in defeating Connecticut, 26-13, last Sunday at 1 pm in Connecticut. The last time the two teams met on Oct. 17, the Huskies surprised the Red by coming out aggressively, and limiting the final score to 13-7 in the Red’s eventual victory. Cornell, eager to prove itself the superior team in the game, came out playing much better than in its first matchup of UConn. “They had a little bit to prove to themselves” said Eldredge. “They were much sharper.” The Red led 5-3 after the first chukker, and repeated that performance in the second to lead 10-6 in the half. Cornell then preceded to lay waste to any doubts about the outcome of the game as senior Marisa Bianchi scored eight goals and classmate Molly Buck added two, putting the Red up 20-7 at the end of the third chukker. “The horses ended up more in their favor in that chukker ,” commented Eldredge on the 3rd chukker. “Once and while it will happen that we might be a better suited to the horses then they are in a particular chukker… and we definitely capitalized on that.” The Red finished with six goals in the fourth chukker. The lady riders will travel to Saratoga Springs next Friday at 8:15 p.m. to face off against the Skidmore Thoroughbreds.Archived article by Paul Testa